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My Change of Heart
WHEN SHOUTING "FORE" TWICE DIDN'T MOVE THE WOMAN ON THE GREEN AHEAD OF THEM, A FELLOW GOLFER SUGGESTED TRYING 3.98
When I first entered into the golf business, both women and dogs were frowned upon on the golf course. (Stay with me. I will talk myself out of this.) For many years golf pro shops dealt mainly in golf merchandise. Eventually a few shirts for men would make an appearance, but a golf pro was not into merchandising clothing. For many years the majority of golf pros owned their own shops and merchandised as they saw fit. While as pro at a resort type club in Florida, I did nicely with the Hawaiian type of men's shirts but laid off of ladies wear.
I moved from there to a military base for a few years and it was strictly golfing merchandise. I left there when I leased my own club.
My new club was in the same town as the military base and I had acquired a following of ladies who had been my students. They followed me over to my new venture and one day they suggested that it might be a good idea to put in some ladies hats in order to protect them from the sun. I happened to have a catalog of highly fashionable hats and I showed it to the ladies with the instructions that I would order the hats that they personally selected. Fifteen ladies picked out hats. Upon arrival they sorted through the hats and found the ones that they had selected. You never heard so many excuses they had. "My hair was fixed differently then." "It does not look the same as in the catalog." and on and on. Only one lady was happy with the one she had selected and I gave it to her, and then said, "Thank you ladies. You have convinced me not to fool with ladies apparel.
Back then nearly all of the golf pros owned and operated their own golf shops. Being primarily trained in merchandising golfing products, ladies clothing was a new adventure. The majority of the pros, when purchasing ladies clothing, picked out something that looked great on that beautiful young model but that is not what Mrs. "middle age" would purchase. In addition to having taken a financial beating, due to his poor inexperienced purchases, he had to listen to the first words ever entered by one of the female species. "When does it go on sale? The ladies movement in golf had grown the extent that the poor pro was pressured into continuing down along the same path. That is where my change of heart came in.
Over the years I had mellowed, along with the guidance of my lovely wife Patti, and ventured into merchandising ladies golfing sportswear.
We were going to host a ladies tournament at our club, and decided to put in a little ladies shop in a spare room in the clubhouse. Still being skeptical, and not wanting the loss in this operation to be figured into the overall finances of the club, it was decided to make it a separate operation in every respect. We created a new ladies business, which we named "Lady L's Country Club Sportswear. We went to the PGA Merchandise show in Orlando, and Patti did the purchasing. Within a couple of years we had expanded to 24 golf and Country Clubs in two states. We rotated the apparel from shop to shop, and never left anything there more than one month. We also supplied all of the racks and fixtures as well as arranging displays. The pros loved the idea and it took the pressure of the ladies off of him. In the course of a year he had 12 different displays of ladies clothing.
This became pretty much of a full time business, and I had to "farm out" some of my Golf Club business for a period of time in order to work on this new project. My wife, Patti, did all of the purchasing and paper work, and at times would go on the road with me when we could take our child with us. Manufacturers hounded us for business and would fly us places to get our ideas. At times I would have a LPGA member go with me as a representative of their companies. The club would furnish us with a luncheon, and the company they represented would furnish the ladies with gift items from their company. Then I would give a sales pitch (spelled out by my wife Patti) on the new items that we were installing. After lunch the LPGA player would put on a clinic. Our operation was the subject of a feature article in the National PGA magazine. We closed out the business after 17 years. In the mean time our son had graduated and I was becoming too involved in running our club. That was a long cry from burning up those hats, so you can say that I really had a change of heart.
Probably one of the most difficult jobs is being able to find a name or description of an event, or organization. "World Championship" is overworked. We have more so called world championships in golf than you can shake a stick at. Boxing has a world champion for about every 2 pounds and with different boxing organizations. Merchandise sales have worked "Moonlight Madness" to death. This is a complicated world we live in.
THEY SAY GOLF IS LIKE LIFE, BUT DON'T BELIEVE THEM. GOLF IS MORE COMPLICATED THAN THAT.